THC4MS, Day Three

Frustratingly, day three started late and finished early. The start was delayed because Greg Hoare, Mark's barrister, was otherwise engaged in another court and because Mr Davies, Marcus' barrister, needed to familiarise himself with the evidence to be presented by the last prosecution witness, an accountant by the name of Christopher Jones. This is the geezer who added up all the receipts and whatnot he was given by the cops who raided chez Davies and came to the conclusion that Marcus was operating three bank accounts in his girlfriend's name, through which some forty grand had passed over a period of a little over two years. I tactfully omitted this information from my account of yesterday's proceedings because (1) the defence had not been properly informed of this witness and yesterday was the first they'd heard of it and (2) because it's a load of bollocks: Tara's got one account and twenty grand a year is not a massive income for a family with two children.

However, Russell Jenkins in The Times was not so scrupulous in his second hand report that appears on page 3 of today's paper. Although the jury are not supposed to read the papers, the Judge opened today's proceedings at nearly midday by advising them of some mis-reporting in the press. The Daily Mirror, in a stub headlined something snappy like, "Couples' Pot Chocolate", inaccurately reported that the Gibson's had 'sold' cannabis chocolate, but it should have said, 'supplied'. In fact, the Crown does not suggest that CannaBiz chocolate was ever sold. The Times' report refers to Tara's three bank accounts, which the Judge said could have been the result of some confusion with Mark Gibson, who does operate three bank accounts (business, personal, savings).

The one like Jeremy Grout-Smith, having presented a pretty miserable case for the Crown yesterday, rose to his elegantly shod feet to inform His Honour that the prosecution defence could not call its final witness, the incompetent accountant, Mr Jones, who will not be available until Friday morning. The defence cannot proceed until this accountancy issue is resolved and nor can the legal arguments be had, which Mr Phillips has agreed to adjudicate before the defence starts to put its case.

Mr Grout-Smith could do not more to advance the prosecution than read out further extracts from the Admissions enumerated yesterday, in particular the interviews conducted with Lezley Gibson and Marcus Davies, at the time of their respective arrests and subsequently. This took up the hour or so before lunch. Had you not known that Jezza G-S wasn't on their side, you'd never have guessed it from the extracts of Lezley's and Marcus's interviews that he chose to draw the jury's attention to.

He retold, in her words, how Lezley had gradually decided to go public about her use of cannabis after Mark had spent a week in Durham Gaol over a cannabis offence and had become progressively more militant. She described the cannabis chocolate-making process in detail, emphasising the scrupulous care they took to make it easy for MS patients to consume. The operation adhered to the highest standards of hygiene, in which Mark is formally qualified. Lezley said that Mark would not be involved in the medicinal cannabis issue, or in manufacturing and distributing the cannabis chocolate, if it were not for his wife's medical condition and her insistence upon carrying on providing effective medicine to people in a similar position.

In a second interview after Marcus had been busted, the police told Lezley that cannabis plants had been found at his house and asked her if he were growing them on behalf of THC4MS, in order to provide the active ingredient for the cannabis chocolate? Lezley said that most of the cannabis that THC4MS used was donated anonymously, so she couldn't say whether Marcus had ever sent them cannabis to put into the chocolate, but that she doubted it because Marcus was a medicinal cannabis user himself, although he doesn't have MS and isn't qualified to receive CannaBiz chocolate.

Finally, Mr Grout-Smith read from the transcript, Lezley said, "what we do, we do to help people, not to line our pockets. I do what I do because people ask me to. I don't ask them if they want to try some cannabis chocolate, they come to me. And I can do without this..."

The interview statements from Marcus Davies, when he was arrested in June 2005 and five weeks later at a second interview in Penrith, were similarly positive. Marcus described his role in running a PO Box for THC4MS, which was the first point of contact for clients, who had to request each and every cannabis chocolate bar by letter. Every week, Marcus would clear the PO Box and send a list of requests to Alston, along with any cash, stamps or postal orders. Cheques made out to 'THC4MS' were returned because they couldn't be banked and cheques with the payee line left blank were passed through his partner, Tara's bank account without her necessarily knowing what the money was for.

At a subsequent interview, Marcus said that for a period of between six and twelve months, he deducted ten per cent from any monies he handled for THC4MS as an administration charge and to cover his costs. He'd kept rudimentary but accurate accounts and a breakdown of THC4MS activity for one week in September 2003 was given: THC4Ms had received 39 requests for CannaBiz chocolate; £182 in 10 cheques, one of which was made out to L.Gibson; £130 in cash; £21 worth of postal orders and stamps to the value of £34.70.

Marcus was asked why he was growing cannabis at his home in Huntingdon and if it was intended for THC4MS and Marcus said, no, it was intended for him. He is also a medicinal cannabis user who suffers from epilepsy and diabetes, but he doesn't have multiple sclerosis and is not therefore eligible to receive THC4MS chocolate. He needed to grow his own cannabis to ensure quality - the strain he was growing was not your regular street skunk - and to get away from the 'scumbag dealers'. Mr Grout-Smith had Marcus repeat the phrase, 'scumbag dealers', as if to emphasise to the jury what Mr Davies is not! "I don't want anything to do with scumbag dealers," Marcus Davies told police.

Marcus discussed his role as the web-master of thc4ms.org, which domain is registered in his name and which he updates on instruction from Mark. He didn't know for certain where the cannabis chocolate factory was located, had never helped make the chocolate and had never even seen it being made. He had never received any CannaBiz chocolate from THC4MS because he isn't eligible to receive it. He had tried some once, when a bar of CannaBiz was returned to the THC4MS PO Box because it could not be delivered. Marcus had tried a few squares, but he wasn't fond of dark chocolate and he couldn't really tell if it had much effect, frankly, since he smoked quite a lot of cannabis anyway.

And that's it. That, substantively, is the prosecution case. The court is not sitting tomorrow and so now the jury has been sent away until Friday morning, when they will assemble at 10.30 to hear the evidence of the final prosecution witness, Mr Christopher Jones, who I guarantee is going to be torn to shreds in cross examination. This will take maybe an hour and a half. Then the jury are going to be sent away again while the lawyers and the judge have their legal confabulation. Oh, they can't wait. His Honour told the lads what case law he'd been digging into on Monday, tipping them the wink as to what they needed to study: Archbold/Blackstone on Conspiracy; the Anderson decision ("excellent scholarship from Lord Bridge" purred His Honour); Churchill (2) in Skye.

I won't be in court on Friday and I wouldn't understand the legal arguments anyway, but if any law students from Newcastle or Durham are reading this, you might consider getting yourself along to the Carlisle Court on Friday afternoon to hear the discussion that will ultimately determine what defence THC4MS will be permitted to present to the jury, starting next Monday. Then you can tell us all about it here!

So, we're back to the original timetable. The defence won't now start before Monday and is likely to last a couple of days, so a verdict probably won't come before Wednesday. Frankly, the prospects are looking pretty darn good. The prosecution have totally failed to make a convincing case that any of the defendants have done anything wrong. The jury must be thinking, 'is that it?' Now, they're going to wait 36 hours to be presented with a load of bollocks which is going to be flatly contradicted by a very competent defence team. Then they're going to have all weekend to consider the (lack of) evidence against THC4MS